Travellin' Penguin

FROM MY SHELF…

I finished listening to East of Eden by John Steinbeck yesterday. I really enjoyed the book a lot once I got into it and had the characters straight in my head. Rather than wait to read a lot and finally learn who everyone is, I went to Chat GPT and asked it to list the characters in East of Eden.  Within a minute I had a complete list of the characters and who they are within the book, by family.  Wow! Would this be helpful if I were to dive into any big Russian novel. It was incredibly helpful.

I have to say I am enjoying reading older American authors as that is the America I remember and loved and nothing like it is there today. So nostalgic. People were just so different. Responsible, courteous, seemingly doing the right thing by others. Steinbeck is so very good writing about characters and dialogue. I will reread more of his books as I’ve  not read him in 50 years.

Now- the book from my shelf is one my neighbour’s (who just passed away,) sister gave me. It is a very old 1933, hardcover cook book called the New Standard Cookery Illustrated edited by Elizabeth Craig. Oldham Press Limited W,C. London. 

I laughed at the following paragraph from the book:

“I am glad to be able to present to housewives not only a large number of modern recipes but a large number of old favourites,which I have often been asked for and which I have found very few books carry.

There is one thing husbands won’t be able to say anymore if their wives use this cookery book, and that is that they can’t get the dishes mother used to make.”

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Many of the recipes are wild game, lots of butter and lard, all the old foods we don’t fix anymore.

The other thing I noticed is how much trouble these women would have had to go through to fix something relatively easy. I am typing up a recipe for Southern Corn Bread as an example.

This is a recipe one sees quite a bit in southern cookbooks from the American south. I used to make it when we lived in Florida for 15 yrs before we moved to Australia.

I could easily find corn meal there. I have made corn bread here but have used polenta as I haven’t found corn meal. So here we go.

Utensils needed:

Sieve, saucepan, 3 basins, egg beater, deep loaf tin, measuring spoons and a wooden spoon. 

Ingredients:

2 cups corn meal

2 eggs

2 cups milk

2 TBSP butter

1/2 tsp salt. 

3 tsp baking powder.

Instructions:   Sift the corn meal, salt and baking powder into a basin.  Scald the milk & add the butter. When the butter is melted add the milk & butter with the beaten egg yolks, to the corn meal. Fold in the stiffly frothed whites of eggs and bake in a deep, buttered loaf tin for about 1/2 hour.

(Temperature not given so guess the women of the world knew which to use.)

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Now there are corn bread mixes, especially in the USA and there are several steps I believe can be omitted.

I hope you enjoy some of the photos here.

Is this the oldest cook book I own now? No I actually have my grandmother’s cookbook from 1926 with a few comments strewn throughout. I find it interesting to look through these old books and see how people ate years ago. Would I want to live back then and have to cook everyday the way the women before us did? No, I don’t think so. Mr P does most of the cooking in our house. That would not have happened in the past except out of necessity. I think food would have been more wholesome in many ways but preparation is so much easier now. Wouldn’t it be fun to go back in time with a microwave under one arm and an air fryer under the other.

What is the oldest cook book you own now? Or What cook book is your favourite?

PHOTOGRAPHY

No it’s not Christmas time yet but our photo club had a great day out yesterday on a Scavenger Hunt in Richmond, Tasmania.  Richmond is a small, historical town about 45 minutes from Hobart. We met at the local bakery at ten am for a group coffee. I passed out the pens (I bought a pile of them at the tip shop for a dollar) and the paper listing the 20 items we were to photograph.

Everyone had 90 minutes to photograph as many of the items as they could. The day was a bit overcast but a fairly warm 18 degrees C (is about 64 F). It felt almost tropical.

It was a good way to end the week.

Here is a selection of the photo items.

Blossoms or flowers

Six in a row

An old shed

Two birds together. In this case, two geese a laying

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READING

Now, some other people I have been spending time with are the Trask and Hamilton families. Cyrus Track is a stern patriarch and father of Adam and Charles. Adam is a gentle, idealistic son who becomes a central character. He is so naive in his life. It is often quite annoying.

The awful character I’ve been around is Cathy Ames also known as Kate. What a wicked woman she is. And to top it off she is married to Adam who just can’t see what she is like. 

By now, most of you probably know what book I’m spending time with this week. It is John Steinbeck’s book East of Eden. I listen to it at night while I junk journal or do a puzzle. The narration is good. (Narrator is Simon Manyonda).

Adam’s friends, the Hamiltons are lovely people. He is a warm hearted Irish immigrant farmer. But his wife Eliza is a strict religious person and I have enjoyed seeing how she deals with Kate.

East of Eden is a retelling of the biblical story of Cain and Abel. It is a blockbuster of a book and surprisingly I have not read it. When I was in my twenties, living in Michigan and going to Central Michigan University in Mt Pleasant I read most of Steinbeck’s books. However for some reason I did not cover this one. 

I love Steinbeck but I must say, having read Grapes of Wrath three times in my life, I still think that is his masterpiece.

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MORE PHOTOGRAPHY

Now for another photography trick- last week I mentioned I had a street photography project book and I was supposed to go out and find a randomly picked assignment in this book. The theme was Zoom Out. It is quite easy to do with both phone and camera. You approach an area you like and take a wide angle photo of it. It can have lots of little things in the photo but overall you are covering it all. 

I went into the city last week and sat outdoors at a favourite restaurant. I needed time alone and some people watching time. I ordered a tomato, cheese and pineapple toasted sandwich and a chocolate milkshake. I love their milkshakes as they use the big old time stainless steel (aluminium?) containers and it easily gives me two or three glasses of milkshake. The kind we used to get as young people at the drug store counter in Michigan in the 50s and 60s. As a ten year old, my mother used to think I was too skinny and she’d give me my 35 cents to go and have a milkshake almost daily after school. I think she really just wanted us kids out of the house. We’re talking 1959 or 1960. I never complained and happily sat at the counter with my milkshake. It had malt in it which is even better.

MORE NEWS- SOMETHING EXTRA

I am going to introduce another feature to my posts.

It is going to be called- ‘From My Shelf’ where I feature a book from my shelf because of its interest, uniqueness, love, or just because I like it a lot. These are the books that are huge or tiny, the ones we don’t read cover to cover. The ones with great photos or they may be older. I’ll start that either as part of this weekly blog post or on it’s own. If anyone has a preference or idea, let me know in the comments. 

COMING UP

Forward planning for this coming week?  I must focus on exercise. I am promising to get to the pilates class, the barre’ class and the personal trainer this coming week.

I will also listen to more of East of Eden so I can finish it and move on to another book. Though I never race through books just to finish.

AT THE HOUSE

On the pet front all the guys are doing well. Cousin Eddie continues to eat and eat but as he is older he never puts on weight. He is the one we worry about but he eats and is happy and under veterinarian supervision.

Ollie and Peanut (Peanny) spend more time outdoors as the weather has been quite spring like.

Pickles is walking around the house more and more. She explores it a lot while we sleep but she came face to face with our little maternal Peanny this morning and did not bat an eye. Penny does not chase her as Ollie might.

I will check on my rock tumbler too as I found a few stones that might polish up and I won a box of petrified wood at auction and I’m going to see what that does in my Australian geographic tumbler. I’ll let you know as it is a slow process. 

UNTIL NEXT WEEK

I hope everyone has a good week and does something they love with one of their interests. I have many interests and I feel if you like doing something you need to make time to do it. 

Let me know what one of your interests is that you wish you could make more time for. All the best.

Bye for now…

I feel like this weekend begins a new winter chapter in Tasmania. We’ve had some glorious days then another cold front moves in but this is normal. Not long now until spring.

Daffodils are rising, the wattle tree blooms have us all sneezing and I’m hearing a lot about getting the seed potatoes ready for planting.

It is also time to shed a bit of weight and get the camera out and post up some new photos.

It is time to connect to people I haven’t seen in awhile. I am looking forward to sitting outdoors again while having my lunch or coffee.

This week I had long conversations with three beautiful friends I’ve not seen for awhile. Yet on Wednesday there was a wake at a pub for another. That turned into a bittersweet time as I met and spent time with her two sisters and her niece. I helped a bit the next day to help clean out things in the house. A sad process. Donate? Skip it? Give it away? Auction? A Vinnies truck (thrift shop) turned up for bigger donations. Then the sisters and I and another neighbour sat around in the half empty lounge room telling me their stories of the past and the history of our neighbourhood. The house has been here for a very long time. I learned so much and it was lovely watching them laugh at the memories.

On top of all of this I had my book group evening where we discussed Robbie Arnott’s book Dusk. A beautiful Australian tale.

On Tuesday evening I got to one of my photo club meetings where we shared a lot of photos on the big screen and talked of what we loved and what we’d change in the editing process of the photos. We also had a speaker who shared his landscape and seascapes photography and a lively discussion ensued.

However on Friday we not only celebrated Ollie’s sixth birthday we celebrated our 54th wedding anniversary We went out to a very favourite restaurant. We shared a bottle of local Tasmanian wine and a gorgeous meal with yummy dessert. We amaze ourselves that we are still here. Life seems so much more settled as we age.

Now it is the weekend and we are very tired and just enjoying a bit of reading, social media, journalling and I have started repurposing a backyard area because I Am. Going. To. Plant. Potatoes‼️😳‼️

Something I’ve not done before but as an old time American farmer might say, “I just have a hankerin’ to plant a dern tater.”

Thats the week!

Now I’ll go dig up some photos to illustrate this ‘dern’ post.

Have a lovely week and if you feel so inclined tell me something fun you did that gave you a little buzz of happiness or a small giggle.

See you next week!